The ROI Panel discusses the news from Paris and what it means for investors.

COP21 | Impact Alpha's ROI

On this episode of ROI, David Bank chats with Cathy Clark, of Duke University, about bridging the pioneer gap.

Tackling The Pioneer Gap With Cathy Clark | Impact Alpha's ROI

In 2012, the F.B. Heron Foundation made waves by setting a goal to mission-align 100% of it's $300 million in assets by 2017. 

Now, in "Building a Foundation for the 21st Century," Clara Miller - president of Heron - has called for the rest of the field to follow suit.

This week on ROI we're featuring an interview with Clara. 

Clara Miller - All In For Impact | Impact Alpha's ROI

On today’s show, the ROI Panel is talking infrastructure. Join Brian Walsh, Imogen Rose-Smith, and David Bank for a discussion about the huge economic and social opportunities for impact and institutional investors in infrastructure. 

Infrastructure! | Impact Alpha's ROI

David chats with Emily Stone, CEO and Co-Founder of Uncommon Cacao, about her experience as a social entrepreneur.

Emily Stone | Impact Alpha's ROI

The panel gives their take on SOCAP - what it is, where it's come from, and what it can be.



#SOCAP16

What will a Clinton Presidency mean for Impact Investing?

Madam President and the Impact Economy

Risk. Is it a board game focused on world domination, a fundamental consideration when allocating capital, or both? We focus on the latter this week, and explore how the impact community approaches issues surrounding risk and opportunity.

Risk and Impact

On this episode of ROI, David Bank chats with Morgan Simon of the Candide Group about her new book "Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change."

A Conversation with Morgan Simon

On this episode of ROI, David Bank chats with technologist and entrepreneur Tim O'Reilly about his new book WTF: What's the Future, and Why It's Up to Us.

WTF: An Interview With Tim O'Reilly

Imogen Rose-Smith plays cautious realist to David Bank's blue-sky futurist in this heated (but always friendly!) Returns on Investment roundtable. 

At issue is the role of the world’s biggest asset owners – so-called Universal Owners – in the rotation of capital toward sustainability and inclusion.

Trillion-dollar question: How the World’s Biggest Asset Owners Play the Risks Ahead (podcast)

It has been said that "for impact investing, every day is international women's day." As the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements continue to demonstrate their staying power, is it time that impact and finance at large take a closer look at gender equality within firms as well as in their investments? Brian Walsh, Imogen Rose-Smith and David Bank discuss in the latest ROI.

#IWD2018: Gender Equity is Not Only the Smart Thing to Do, It's the Right Thing

The obsession with financial returns that for decades kept major institutional investors away is now pushing them towards a serious accounting of environmental risks.

Ashby Monk joins Dave Chen, the chair of Equilibrium Capital, and David Bank, editor of Impact Alpha, on this episode of Returns on Investment: Institutional Shift.

Institutional Shift: Long-term asset owners move to future-proof their portfolios

The latest Returns on Investment podcast takes up the case of the $1 billion Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund and impact investing failures more broadly. The health fund, which was pursuing an ambitious effort to build comprehensive healthcare networks in the megacities of the 21st century – think Lagos and Karachi and Mumbai – is now embroiled in the larger scandal that has engulfed Abraaj Group.

Will Abraaj’s ambitious global health strategy survive the scandal?

We ring a bell and joke about taking a drink every time we can work the phrase “impact alpha” into a Returns on Investment podcast. We had to suspend the stunt to discuss a new report,“The Alpha in Impact.”

The report pulled back the curtain on 29 investments from 13 funds to demonstrate that impact be a driver of returns, not just a drag. Our roundtable regulars discuss.

The Impact Alpha Report: Can Impact be a Driver, Dot a Drag, on Returns?

The three-letter acronym for “environmental, social and governance” has broken out from the wonky world of finance and into subway ads and online pitches for a slew of new ESG mutual funds, ETFs and other financial services. 

How such “non-financial” factors affect financial performance has been a matter of hot debate for several years. As ESG breaks into the mainstream, the podcast’s roundtable regulars took on a tougher question is: Does it make a bit of difference in the real world?

If ‘ESG Investing’ is So Great, Why is the World Going to Hell?

In a new series of podcasts produced in collaboration with Omidyar Network, ImpactAlpha asked a range of investors, from fully “market-rate,” to unapologetically concessionary, what lies… Beyond Tradeoffs.

What we heard is that investors of all types are finding strategies to avoid specific and systemic risks, to be aligned with long-term trends, to generate tangible and measureable social and environmental benefits and to otherwise meet their objectives – all along the continuum of risks and returns.

Beyond Tradeoffs: Omidyar Network's Investments Across the Continuum of Returns

In the second episode of ImpactAlpha’s “Beyond Trade-offs” podcast series, produced in collaboration with Omidyar Network, Goldman Sachs’ John Goldstein charts the development of “risk-return-impact” frameworks that meet the needs of institutional investors. One of his jobs, he says, “is to help Goldman’s investors do better at doing what they do by incorporating environmental, social and governance into how we invest for all our clients.”

Beyond Tradeoffs: Big Investors Press Asset Managers to Integrate ‘ESG’ and Impact Across Portfolios

On the latest episode of our special Institutional Shift series of conversations, Dave Chen and David Bank review their predictions from six months ago and look ahead to 2020. On the docket: climate-change investing, plastics, market segmentation, and product development.

Investment Trends to Watch in the Second Half of 2019

The popular protests that drove the GSG Impact Summit out of Santiago, Chile, added “a poignant urgency” to the first day of the global gathering of impact investors in Buenos Aires, Sir Ronald Cohen said in a podcast interview with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank.

Sir Ronald Cohen: ‘We are overthrowing the dictatorship of profit’

How impact investing will fare in the inevitable event of the next economic downturn is the topic of the most recent instalment of ImpactAlpha’s podcast Returns on Investment. Roundtable regulars Brian Walsh, David Bank and your “loveable curmudgeon” all agree that a slowdown, and possibly even a crash, is inevitable in the not-so-distant future.

Will Impact Investing Be Swimming Naked When the Tide Goes Out?

“Global thematic impact didn’t exist, so we decided to build it ourselves," says Erika Karp in the latest ROI. Cornerstone’s Access Impact Fund is a Nasdaq-listed mutual fund that for a minimum $1,000 investment offers access to sub-advisors looking for thematic investments in small-, medium- and large-cap companies across geographies.

Karp, formerly the head of global sector research at UBS Investment Bank, is taking a stand on hotly debated investment topics that go beyond impact investing. She says active management, which has fallen out of favor because of high fees and uneven performance, is key to intentional impact.

Cornerstone Capital Seeks to Prove Active Managers Can Deliver Impact in Public Equities

The Decapitalization of the Fossil Fuel Industry

“The positive news is that more and more people know what we are talking about,” Bertrand Badré says on the most recent ImpactAlpha podcast. “The negative news is there is not enough action.” The former World Bank official and founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital (the name comes from a French surrealist poem) says needed changes in the financial system were not given enough thought when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted five years ago. He’s writing a book on the topic; as a down payment, Blue Orange is releasing at Davos its internal rating system, SDG Blue, which scores investments against the SDGs in much the same way Moody’s scores companies’ credit ratings.

Blue like an Orange offers a report card for the Sustainable Development Goals

On the latest edition of ImpactAlpha’s Returns on Investment podcast, host Brian Walsh suggests that the ‘technology’ of ESG and impact investing has passed the early-adopter stage and entered the early majority, gaining momentum among companies, asset managers and banks.

‘ESG investing’ crosses the chasm from early adopter to early majority. So what?

Dave Chen of Equilibrium Capital joins David Bank to make bold predictions for 2020 on another episode of our special series: Institutional Shift.

Institutional Shift: Calling the inflection point, and other trends to watch in 2020

Your impact briefing for February 21st, featuring the week's headlines, Agents of Impact, and new info on off-grid electricity in Africa.

Impact Briefing for February 21st

The headlines, a new handbook aims to help scale up the amount of impact capital, and Dennis profiles Tynesia Boyea-Robinson.

Returns on Investment

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